1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a scene data editing apparatus, a mixer configuration editing apparatus, a custom component editing apparatus, and a scene data storage apparatus for use in processing of sound signals in a digital mixer.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, as described in DIGITAL MIXING ENGINE DME32 Instruction Manual, YAMAHA CORPORATION, 2001, there is known a digital mixer whose mixer configuration is customizable. Such digital mixer constitutes a sound signal processing unit using a processor (e.g., digital signal processor, DSP) that can operate on programs. The digital mixer can process sound signals based on a mixer configuration edited by using an external PC (personal computer). Special application software is used to create or edit the mixer configuration on the PC. That is, creating and editing of the mixer configuration requires arranging components as parts for signal processing on a PC screen and making wire connection between the arranged components to define the input/output relationship. When the created mixer configuration is transferred to the digital mixer for execution, the digital mixer realizes operations of the mixer configuration by executing programs corresponding to the created mixer configuration.
The above-mentioned components include a preset component (hereafter referred to as a P component) and a custom component (hereafter referred to as a C component). The P component is used as a basic unit of components constituting the mixer configuration. The C component is a combination of P components or subcomponents and can be treated as one component. A user granted a specified authentication can freely create and edit C components.
In a first aspect of the prior art, such a digital mixer can use a plurality of pieces of scene data for each mixer configuration. The scene data is a data set of parameters used for operation of the mixer configuration. The same mixer configuration may need to operate based on various parameter values depending on scenes. For this purpose, there is provided a plurality of scene data that are appropriately called to operate the digital mixer. The scene data is a collection of component scenes corresponding to the components that constitute the mixer configuration.
In a second aspect of the prior art, such a digital mixer requires various parameter settings for each component of the mixer configuration. A library may be provided for P components to make the parameter setup easy. When P components are used as constituent elements of the mixer configuration, parameters needs to be set for the P components at a time. For this purpose, the library comprises a plurality of parameter sets for the P components. A user can follow specified operations to read setup data from a P component library for P components as constituent elements of the mixer configuration and set parameters for the P components at a time.
In a third aspect of the prior art, the above-mentioned C component can be created and edited by using a P component as a constituent element, namely as a subcomponent.
As mentioned above, in the first aspect of the prior art, the C component itself comprises several P components as subcomponents. Generally, different C components have differently structured constituent elements. Accordingly, different C components have corresponding component scenes that are incompatible with each other. This incompatibility causes inconveniences in various situations. Since the user can freely customize C components, for example, one C component can be slightly edited to create another C component. In this case, the edited C component makes it impossible to use a C component scene used in the initial C component before the editing.
With regard to the second aspect of the prior art, however, it has been impossible to use a library for the above-mentioned C components. Accordingly, parameters cannot be set for C components at a time. On the other hand, it has been impossible to save a user-specified parameter setting for the C components.
With regard to the third aspect of the prior art, the C component is created and edited by using a P component as a constituent element. However, it has been impossible to use a C component as a constituent element of another C component.